


in each place and forever

by goukyorin (sashimisusie)



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Hands, M/M, Slow Build, arcana swap au, emperor!yosuke, fool!rise, lovers!souji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4816250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashimisusie/pseuds/goukyorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's what they write scientific grants about: the peculiar headiness of irises blooming after the rain, the thermodynamics of two bodies moving as one, the specific heat capacity of love. Souji likes the idea of free-falling, weightless, until he hits the water face-first and finds he's never learned to swim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in each place and forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strikinglight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/gifts).



> The corresponding image (drawn by yours truly) is also a gift for the much-beloved Necca-chan.  
> http://evandrelical.tumblr.com/post/132519861591/
> 
> Heavily inspired by "Other Lives And Dimensions And Finally A Love Poem"

Souji Seta's left hand will live longer than his right. The rivers, slicing flesh-coloured ribbons over the palms of his hands, tell him so. Never argue with rivers, or brick walls, or the ache in his right arm at being overextended overlong. Never expect a girl with steel in her eyes and silver in her hair to simply mind her own business.

For the latter, he's actually rather glad. The cat clutched to his chest, perhaps a little less so, scampering free from his grasp the moment his feet touch back to solid Inaba soil. Sometimes it seems like that's all the little town has to its name: dirt, water, and more recently, a whole lot of fog.

There's a fleck of dirt on her cheek and bewilderingly, she's the first girl that doesn't blush when his thumb grazes her cheek. "And who might I owe my life to?" he says, stepping back to sweep a polite bow. "You're the newest transfer student, aren't you?"

She smiles, just the once and perhaps more for him than anything else. Steel in her eyes, a curious softness beneath. "Call me Rise."

\--

He mourns, sometimes, for the city.

For the pulse of big city life, the long years of fast cars and faster paces little more than a distant memory that thrums in the soles of his shoes. There's a lot more walking in Inaba, a little more talking, and in between too much and not enough trying Souji finds that it's different trying to slide seamlessly into a small town. Perhaps it's good, then, that Rise Kujikawa gathers misfits to her like she's got nothing better to do, and honestly, given the flagging state of the local economy, maybe it's true.

But who isn't a little misfit inside to begin with?

He has his father's eyes and his mother's silky hair, an unbroken nose from his great-aunt, his uncle Dojima's solid chin. There are fingerprints from generations past in the unblemished expanse of his skin, whispered hopes collecting on his eyelashes, a sordid collection of hand-me-down body parts pieced together to a whole. _You don't have to be perfect_ , each creaking seam says, _they weren't either._

Souji wipes a hand over the fog-dampened glass, finds the reflection blinking back a little wanting. _Maybe you don't have to be perfect_ , drums his fingertips into the streaked _but oh, I do._

\--

Praying, Souji thinks, is how hands mourn.

Hands are meant to move, to hold, to brush over split knuckles silently with alcohol-soaked gauze pads. Yosuke's taken to disappearing on some days after classes, leaving with apologetic shrugs and returning with bruised shoulders. There are questions he won't answer, answers he can't say, and when, oh, when did they start standing farther apart?

The bell tolls cheerful, midnight in his afternoon soul, as the coins skitter into the depths of the offertory box. There's a ritual to it--ring, bow, clap--and comfort to be had in the repetition. The bell tolls, the coins skitter, and Souji thinks praying, clapping his hands together, hoping for the opposite of mourning.

_Bring him back_ , he whispers into the space between his still palms, long after his feet carry him away. _Bring him back_ , Souji writes into the blank lines of note papers, coloured markers highlighting the spaces in between staying up and waiting for his phone to beep.

_Clap, bow, ring._

\--

He likes the idea of love. Its application, not as much.

It's what they write scientific grants about: the peculiar headiness of irises blooming after the rain, the thermodynamics of two bodies moving as one, the specific heat capacity of love. Souji likes the idea of free-falling, weightless, until he hits the water face-first and finds he's never learned to swim.

"The moon is beautiful, isn't it?" Souji murmurs, clawing his way to the surface. Soseki Natsume, he wants to say, it's written in your notes, and the scientist in him wants to say it's written in the stars.

"It's alright, I guess." Yosuke replies, looking past him to see the stars.

One sees the moon, the other sees the stars, and he really, truly, does not like the idea of love.

\--

His head is fog-heavy and he doesn't much like the idea of the place he's woken up in. Here, Souji has two hands, two hands, one nose, one mouth and they are all traitors, the harsh echo of a voice like and not like his own echoing off the mirrored labyrinth walls. His memory is vanishing, perhaps tucked away in the nook of a cousin self that's never defiled or betrayed anyone.

There is his father's eyes and his mother's hair, that sure-set chin and the straight line of some aunt's nose. Here are the wind-torn webs between his grandfather's fingers, the whorls of his fingertips pieced together from someone's brothers and sisters.

_You're not me,_ Souji screams and his face leers back, _but oh, I am._

_\--_

When he wakes, he still has but two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two hands, and they are vanishing, the hollow of Yosuke's back to rest his cheek against. There is glass on the floor and the iron-rich tang of blood in the air, like a raw heart squeezed and wrung while it tried to hang on. There are stars in his eyes and salt-water in his nose but he'll be damned if he'll sink without trying to swim.

Hands are meant to move, to hold, to clench at his side because he's never been so useless in his life. Souji claps his hands together, hoping for the opposite of mourning and the shatter of a card high above is sunrise to his midnight soul.

_Clap, bow, ring._

"Persona!"

\--

In hindsight, Rise Kujikawa is to blame.

Never argue with the rivers slicing lifelines through his palm, or brick walls named Yosuke, or the ache in his right arm at being crushed to his chest overlong. Never trust a girl with iron in her eyes and steel in her hand to simply mind her own business.

As the irises press their perfume into every crest, groove, whorl of his skin, he conducts an inventory.

Here is Yosuke's hand--tendons, ligaments, joints, metacarpals-- his wrist, his throat bobbing beneath Souji's lips with each swallow, both their trembling hearts. Above, the sliver of a moon, the faintest dusting of stars. There are twenty-seven--no more, perhaps less--bones within the wrist and hand, two bones in the throat, more than enough to touch, to use, to sink one's teeth into. Here, nestled in between Souji's third and fourth ribs, is the sun-bright centre of him, and here is where he has laid bare his own heart.

"The moon is beautiful, isn't it?" he says, thumb brushing against Yosuke's cheek, smiling when there's no need to guess.


End file.
